1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic analyzer for analyzing components of a biological sample and a support system therefor, and relates to effective operation and management of calibration and accuracy management in the automatic analyzer.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an automatic analyzer for analyzing components of a biological sample such as blood or urine using a reagent, it is necessary to execute a calibration which is a calibration curve quality control and accuracy management for keeping the automatic analyzer in the satisfactory state at the beginning of analysis start, or at any predetermined time decided depending on each reagent during analysis, or when necessary during analysis.
Calibration is executed using a reference sample in a concentration predetermined according to each analysis item. Accuracy management is executed using a control sample in the concentration predetermined according to each analysis item. Calibration and accuracy management have a reliable time according to each analysis item respectively. Therefore, when this reliable time elapses, it is necessary to execute calibration or accuracy management once again. If, when calibration or accuracy management is executed, the result is not within the predetermined range, it is decided as a failure and it is necessary to execute calibration or accuracy management once again. Even when a reagent is taken out from a new reagent bottle in each analysis item, it is necessary to execute calibration once again.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,678,755 instructs an automatic chemical analyzer which can execute calibration. This prior art can store the calibration time interval for each analysis item and display alarm data on the display unit by the control means for an analysis item for which the reliable time of a calibration curve elapses. When the calibration menu screen is outputted on the display unit, a list of all analysis items handled by the analyzer is displayed and an alarm symbol is assigned only to analysis items among them for which the reliable time has elapsed.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open 7-92171 instructs a transfer system for arranging a plurality of analyzers along the container transfer line and distributing containers in a number according to the analytical capacity of each analyzer sequentially to a plurality of analyzers. However, this prior art describes nothing regarding calibration and accuracy management.
The equipment described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open 7-92171 is effective in analysis of many samples, though extremely many analysis item kinds are handled. Therefore, when using an automatic analyzer having a plurality of analytical units in the same way as with that in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open 7-92171, if the method described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,678,755 is applied as it is, the operation for performing calibration or accuracy management will be complicated.